Current Projects / Development
Tomorrow's Flight
Created by: Martyn Ellington
Developed by: Martyn Ellington & Steven Stiefel
Screenwriter: Martyn Ellington & Steven Stiefel
Genre: Horror - 60-minute TV Drama - limited series (12 episodes)
Paleontologists find an aircraft and human remains buried near the juvenile T. rex they’re unearthing. As they struggle to understand this impossible find a red-eye flight crash-lands in the Cretaceous period where the surviving passengers and crew must battle the indigenous dinosaurs — and each other — for survival.
The Harvesting
Created by: Martyn Ellington
Developed by: Steven Stiefel & Martyn Ellington
Screenwriter: Martyn Ellington & Steven Stiefel
Genre: Horror - 60-minute TV Drama - on going TV Drama
The Harvesting is a science-fiction/ horror TV show in mystery/alien abduction genre. Set in the UK between Scotland and England, it focuses on three friends who leave the Scottish off-shore oil fields to head home for their scheduled leave. While on their journey, an unusual rain falls, which renders the men unconscious. They wake after a two-week unnatural hibernation, to find that the world is very different. And humanity seems to have mostly vanished. The main character JOHN, races to get home, along with his friend ADI, to find his family.
Exhumation/ October Seven
Created by: Steven Stiefel
Developed by: Steven Stiefel
Screenwriter: Steven Stiefel and M.E. Ellington
Genre: Short - Horror
This horror short tells a grizzly tale of the exhumation and reburial of the famous writer. Exhumation is the B-story of the larger October Seven Feature currently in development. This feature details the last few days of the great writer's life and postulates what may have led to his untimely death and is as terrifying and dark as any told he wrote.
Stranger Lands
Created by: Steven Stiefel & Martyn Ellington
Developed by: Steven Stiefel & Martyn Ellington
Screenwriter: Steven Stiefel & Martyn Ellington
Genre: 60-minute TV Drama/Horror
After the mysterious death of an older priest, the Vatican reassigns a young Spanish priest and his best friend to the 1850s New Mexico Territory diocese from his previous one in Ohio. The priest faces many obstacles in his journey, coming to realize that a strange force may be trying to prevent him from solving the mystery of the older priest’s death and ministering to the diverse population (Mexicans, Native Americans, White settlers, and runaway slaves and freed people). What he discovers makes him question his unwavering belief in God: These revelations include werewolves, the hairy man of the forest, shape shifters, and thunderbirds. STRANGER LANDS is based on two historical figures: Jean-Baptiste Lamy and Joseph Machebeuf.
Thirstonfield Halt
Created by: Steven Ellington
Developed by: Martyn Ellington & Steven Ellington
Screenwriter: Martyn Ellington & Steven Ellington
Genre: 60-minute TV Horror/Limited Series/ Anthology
Jill and Paul live an idyllic life. After her father’s death followed by a brush with cancer, Jill decides to leave work to blog about her experience, and they decide to move into their forever home. They find what they believe is the perfect candidate — the former rural railway station Thirstonfield Halt. Unfortunately, its true history is only known to its current owners, The Bradbury family. When Paul and Jill show interest, the Bradburys agree to sell it, even though they know the danger it could put its new owners in.
DEVOLUTION OF A SPECIES
Created by: Martyn Ellington
Developed by: Martyn Ellington
Screenwriter: Martyn Ellington
Genre: Full Length Feature - Climate Fiction
The World Health Organization is in a race against nature to identify and contain a strange new virus which is causing people to become violent, and which is also causing physical changes. The mutation is devolving Homo-Sapiens as the Neanderthal DNA we all carry, and which is usually dormant, reawakens, re-writing our genetic code. In London, Jeff Eastwood and his family must face stark choices as their young son begins to exhibit these changes.
The Aspern Papers
Created by: Steven Stiefel
Developed by: Steven Stiefel
Screenwriter: Steven Stiefel
Genre: Full length feature - period drama
Set in Venice, Henry James’ “The Aspern Papers” tells the story of a young scholar who tries to coerce an old woman, Juliana Bordereau, into allowing him to see love letters that Jeffrey Aspern, a famous writer, sent to her 70 years ago. Using a false name, the scholar moves into her palazzo, agreeing to pay a lofty rent for access. The old woman’s niece ultimately forces an uncomfortable choice: The scholar must marry the middle-aged spinster if he wants to see the papers. When the scholar demurs, the niece destroys the papers and all the secrets they contain.
Write. Rewrite. When not writing or rewriting, read. I know of no shortcuts.
-- Larry L. King